Last Blog

This is the last blog for this project. This week, Andrew, assigned our froup to create a Atomic Model timeline. In class we researched several scientist that played a large role in the the Atom. And over the weekend im going to get all the information and dates gathered and create the timeline. In Spencer's class we learned the eight stages of Genocide and how criminals or the causers of the Genocide try to cover it up and delete all the evidence and proof that their was a Genocide.

King Leopold's Ghost

Illustrate

Imaginary Memoir Corrections

This is James Bot, our interviewee, hopefully I'll be able to edit our interview and post it later this week.



Last week our written components were due, tomorrow are 2nd draft components are due. When going over the critique for my memoir on James, i don't know if the people who critiqued my work understood what i was going for. My group and i filmed our interview so I'm able to have a direct source. I learned the way he acts, the way he speaks, and terms he uses, so writing this memoir was not at all tough. I was actually confused in the beginning whether to write it professionally or using his words. If i wrote my way you wouldn't be able to understand him as a person, so i wrote with his words. I ended up ignoring half the corrections made but they did come in handy for spelling mistakes. Some things i needed to improve on were describing his emotions, and what his thoughts were of that scene.

Literature Circle Book and Responce to Joe's Blog

Literature Circle
This week we were assigned our Lit Circle Groups for the book "King Leopold's Ghost" by Adam Hochschild. We were given a calender along with the book so we can see how many pages need to be finished each day, this way we will be done with the book at the scheduled time. Along with the calender we were assigned jobs, i am the connector. The connectors job is to connect what you are reading with what you are studying of the world outside of school through news events or political events.

Responce to Joes Blog
Joe Barhoumi is one of my group partners, http://jbarhoumi.blogspot.com/, Joe's blog post's are straight to the point. For example his Literature Circle post goes straight to what was involved, the book's title, author, the group, and the jobs assigned to him for his literature circle. As well as a description of his job. In previous posts he explains what he did that day in class and also shows what he researched after school, giving a couple links, and states what he got from the site.

Memoir

Friday our written component rough drafts were due. I wrote the memoir. The memoir is based on the person i interviewed, James. It is suppose to be the first chapter of his memoir. The interview questions were meant for the writing the memoir and we also video taped it so i got a sense of his character and the way he speaks. This really helped writing the memoir. I still have allot of corrections to make, and i also want to go deeper into detail about certain things, such as the Army his brother served and the enemy informer which started the thing. James had a brother that was a soldier in the army. Someone from the enemies side told the Ugandan soldiers that James, was secretly hiding Military weaponry, vehicles and generators for his brother.

Mini Movie

Monday, this week, our 30 second video on Rwanda was due. My group and i decided to create it on the local tribes which are the Hutu's and the Tutsi. For our research on the two tribes we used several sites but really used CNN. Although this project sounds easy it was frustrating. For example having to work the program Adobe Premiere to make this video seemed impossible, the program was hard to learn, to use, and it seemed to freeze allot. Another problem i had personally was the script, it's hard to right a few sentence's on a tribes conflict that reaches back 600 years, theirs just so much you need to leave out. In the end i staid after school working on it and still we didn't get our best product because it was lost while saving. This project just made me think about the 8 minute documentary we need to do, using the same steps, it's definitely going to be a challenge.

Here's are short script, which i thought turned out pretty well considering the necessary length.
"About 600 years ago the Tutsi a tall warrior people moved from Ethiopia and invaded the Hutu's in Rwanda. Although the Tutsi were much smaller in numbers they conquered the Hutu's who agreed to raise crops for them in return for protection. Even when Belgium ruled the area the two groups lived as one speaking the same language and having intermarriage. The first signs of violence started in 1962 conflict broke out between the Hutu's and the Tutsi.The killings only ended after armed Tutsi rebels, managed to defeat the Hutu's and halt the genocide in July 1994."

Link: http://www.cnn.com/EVENTS/1996/year.in.review/topten/hutu/hutu.html

Interview Reflection

On Wednesday September 10, we met with Walter Lam, President and CEO of the African Alliance, who introduced us to an acquaintance, James Bot, who is an African refugee from Uganda. Our interview with James went well, it left me and my group surprised. I don't know what surprised us more James story on his life or when he told us he hates America. This surprised me, i always assumed people wanted to come to America but i guess the truth is most refugees are forced out of their countries and have no other option but to come to America. James came to America to support his children and live a peaceful life which to him is the happiest life, but he can't even do that. James is unable to see his family, who live in Minnesota; he's been denied parental rights even though he is the only one supporting them. James's life story was a shock as well, he had stories about dodging bullets, running away from over 200 soldiers, and traveling most of Northern Africa.

James Bot was born in northern Uganda; he experienced the death of a brother at the age of eight. He has been shot at and has been tortured and seen has death throughout his life. He grew up in Uganda but was forced to leave, James traveled to Ethiopia where he met his wife. After living in Ethiopia he then moved to Sudan. When he reached the border of Sudan he was thrown in jail because the authorities believed he was Ethiopian. At the time a war was going on between the Sudanese and Ethiopia. He was thrown in jail because they suspected him of being part of the rebel army. He told the guards at the jail the he was originally from Uganda but they didn’t believe him. The officers called the refugee camp where James had been staying. They found out that he was telling the truth and let him go. So he was allowed to travel to Sudan. In Sudan he soon found a job as a teacher and they lived there for about four months. He was fired from teaching, because he did not have any papers that said he was from Sudan. Soon after he told his wife and kids that they had to go, and they left for Egypt. He got a job as a teacher while living at the church and went through interviewing at the United Nations. The interview allowed James and his family to move to America. His wife had a sister that lived in America and they planned to stay with her in Missouri, but she died and her boyfriend left leaving five kids behind. He and his wife moved to Missouri, to take care of the kids (plus their four kids, making it a family of eleven). He and his wife had been taking care of the kids, but his wife doesn’t want anything to do with the kids, she wants to raise her kids and only her kids. James was at work when his wife took their children and left for Minnesota. James follows her to Minnesota because he wants to live as a family. He takes a job in Kansas and sends money to his family through child support. When James went to visit his family he was unable to, even though he is the one supporting them James’s name isn’t written as their parental guardian. Now James lives in San Diego, and is struggling to just pay for his own needs.

Weekend's Research

The past couple days we've been researching water filtration or purification, for our prototypes, in Andrews class. All though its not a reliable site it is good for the basics, so i went to Wikipedia to find out all the known ways of purification such as reverse osmosis and several others. My group and i decided to research all the different ways of purification this weekend so I've been researching the concept of evaporation and condensation. A website that gave me a little better of an understanding is; http://www.epa.gov/ogwdw/kids/pdfs/activity_grades_4-8_waterpurification.pdf. I still need to research further into different ways to perform this filtration system.

Interview Questions

Now that we have the person were going to interview, i did a little research on the country he was born in, Uganda. CIA-The World Fact Book website really is reliable and it also has alot of information on Uganda and my country Rwanda. It gives you a short summary of the countries history, the geography,people government, etc. (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ug.html) Another good website for Uganda thats similar to CIA but gave a better description of the people and history is http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2963.htm.

Walter Lam

Finally, we found someone willing to do an interview, Wlater Lam, he's President and CEO of the Alliance For African Assistance. For the moment were scheduled to meet for the interview at 4:00. I also found a "Moving Stories" article by BBC on Mr. Lam for a background check. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3322409.stm